Virtual Love
by Myaaaaaaaa
Summary: Lucy is a secret nerd. She loves video games and she's chosen to be one of the very first players to play a virtual reality game. But the game glitches out and suddenly the people are stuck in the game. But she meets Natsu, who makes the situation not suck. NaLu
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Lucy are you going to the party tonight?" I heard my friend ask while I was heading towards my locker.

"No, I'm gonna be busy tonight, and probably this whole weekend. But the next party there is, I'm for sure gonna be there" I responded.

I usually go to most of the parties that kids from my school throw, which is why I'm pretty popular, but I'm actually, kinda, sort of a nerd because I'm one of the smartest people in school, and I love video games. In fact, the reason I'm not going to the party tonight is because I was chosen to be one of the first 1,000 players to play Infinite Oasis.

Infinite Oasis is a new game that will be coming out in December, but I'm lucky to have been chosen to play it early

I walked out to the student parking lot and got into my car. I checked my phone to see what time it was. The game would be available to download at 5:00 p.m. so that gave me some time to eat and set my console up. I turned on my car and headed home. I lived alone most of the time, due to my dad being away on long business trips.

I got home and was just about tackled by my dog Plue.

"Aw did you miss me Plue? I was only gone for like 7 hours." I spoke, petting him. I went to check to see if his bowls had food and water, and refilled them. "Eat up." I said walking into the kitchen.

I took out ingredients to make Chicken Alfredo, my favorite meal. Once I got all the ingredients I started cooking the chicken and pasta. Once they were done, I mixed it all together with the Alfredo sauce. When I finished making it, I served my self some in a plate and began eating.

I finished eating and washed the plate and pans I used and put them away. When I checked the time I realized it was already 4:30 p.m. I ran upstairs to my room and started setting every thing up. I opened the email from the game developers that had the countdown until the game was available. I watched it reach zero and started downloading the game. I couldn't wait to start playing it.

It took about 15 minutes to download the entire game. once it finished downloading, I put on the VR headset they sent me in the mail and started the game. Before I was able to actually start the game, it told me to lay down since I don't need to actually move to control my character.

I waited till it got to the main menu, and selected start. It needed me to enter some basic information:

Name - Lucy Heartfilia

Avatar Name - Celestia

Age - 17

Once I entered the information, it had me choose what I wanted my avatar to look like. I made it look like me, but in a way, I made it look different. She had long blonde hair, instead of short hair like mine, I had her wear a cloak over the beginning armor they gave us to begin with.

I then began the game. When I started, everyone was in the same room and there was a big projector screen in the middle of the room. I assumed that the game developers set up a video message to display once everyone started the game.

I walked around the room and saw tables where we could sit at. I saw a table with only a girl sitting there. I decided to sit with her and make my first friend in the game.

"Hey, can I sit here?" I asked. She looked up and nodded. "I'm Celestia." I said extending my arm to shake hers. She looked at it for a second until she spoke up.

"I'm Le- I mean I'm Écrivain." She replied shyly shaking my hand.

"Oh, isn't that writer in french?" I asked. Her face lit up and she nodded her head vigorously.

"Yes! You're the only person here that knows that! Are you french?" She asked.

"No, but I took two years of french class." I responded. She was about to respond when we saw the projector screen turn on and a man, that I assumed was the main game developer appeared.

"Hello, as you all know, you're the first 1,000 people to play this game. The game doesn't come out to the public until December, it is currently October so that means you get two full months of game play before the rest of the world. We hand selected some of the best players from all across the globe." He began. He continued by introducing all the features and options in our menu and he ended saying that he wishes us luck. Every one cheered and a big doorway opened up and we were allowed to leave the room.

"Hey, do you want to come with me?" I asked Écrivain. "And by the way, can I call you Écri for short?" I asked.

"Yeah, for sure." She nodded.

We began walking around the town we started in. There were many stores where they sold armor, clothes, and weapons. Écri and I went and bought some weapons, they were weak but they'd help us level.We spent about an hour walking around until we decided to go out of the town.

There were many paths that lead to other towns with more stuff available but it would take awhile to get there. We decided to go to the nearest town. We ran into a few enemies but we're able to beat them quite easily. We even leveled up five levels and were finally able to choose what type of magic we wanted to use.

I looked through the list and the only one that really interested me was one where we can summon celestial spirits to help us out. I chose that one and was given one spirit to begin with, Aquarius. It showed a picture of her she was basically a mermaid with blue hair.

After we chose our magic, we arrived at the town. It was like the town we started in but it had bigger buildings. I opened my menu to check the time and realized it was already midnight.

"Hey, Écri, I have to log off for today. I'll meet you again tomorrow?" I asked. She nodded.

"Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow." She responded. I logged off waving bye to her.

When I was back in the real world, I took off my headset and turned my console off. I reached for my phone and saw I had missed calls and voicemails from my classmates. I listened to the voicemails and they were all about how I'm missing such an amazing party. I rolled my eyes and turned my phone off since I also kept getting texts about it.

I stood up from my bed and went to take Plue outside to the backyard for a while. When we came back inside, I took a shower and put on my shorts and t-shirt I use as pajamas. I then got into bed to sleep for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

I woke up on Saturday and went on a 3 mile run since I knew I'd be playing Infinite Oasis the majority of the day today. When I finished my run, I took a shower and changed into some comfortable clothes, then I ate some food and began playing.

Once I logged in I went to the menu see if Écri was logged on and she was. I sent her a message to meet me in the center of the town. While I waited, I was watching the other people that were walking around I noticed that the game developers made it so that you can see the avatars names above their head. I saw Écri coming and I stood up and headed towards her.

"Hey, where do you want to go this fine day?" I asked her.

"I heard that the next town over has some good spell books and weapons. Want to go visit the stores?" She suggested.

"Yeah, let's go." I said and started walking towards the town exit.

On our way to the next town, we encountered some enemies that were a little bit higher level than us but we were able to beat them all and they gave us more experience points so we leveled up quite a bit.

When we reached the town, we looked for the store Écri was talking about. When we found it we went in and looked around. Écri looked for some books while I asked the Clerk if there was anything for the class my character was.

"We only have one celestial key at the moment." She said bringing it out. She explained that it was a type of dog spirit and just by hearing that I bought it.

"Thank you." I said walking back towards Écri. "Did you find anything that can help you?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I found these two books. I'm gonna buy them." She said walking up to the clerk. "I'd like to buy these two books." She said. The clerk nodded and Écri payed for the books. We exited the store.

"Wanna go see if there's any quest we can take so we can level?" Écri asked. I nodded. I opened the map in my menu and saw that there was a quest open a few buildings away.

"Let's go over there." I said pointing to the building. We began walking when someone in a hood ran into me causing me to fall down. They looked back and I saw he had pink hair, but he kept on running. Two other people were chasing him and literally just jumped over me. Écri helped me up after they were far away.

"Thanks. Damn wonder why they were chasing that guy." I said.

We continued walking to the building which was a hotel. We walked up to the quest board and looked through it. We would have to kill a specific monster and bring back one of its teeth.

"Wanna accept it?" Écri asked.

"Yeah I'm down, let's do it." I said pressing 'Accept' on the quest menu.

We walked out but we were stopped by someone.

"Have you seen this guy?" He asked showing a picture of a guy with pink hair. I remembered the guy that bumped into me had pink hair but I didn't want to rat him out.

"No, I'm sorry." I replied.

"Okay, thank you though." He thanked me.

Écri and I continued walking out to the destination where the monster was supposed to be at. We walked around for a bit when Écri pointed something out.

"Is that it?" She asked pointing at a monster in the distance. I looked at the picture that was included in the quest.

"Yeah I think so. Let's sneak up on it, I'll attack it first and then you can summon a net to capture it and make it easier to defeat it." I suggested.

"Okay, let's go." She began walking and hid behind a tree near it. I snuck up right behind it and counted down from three so I could signal Écri.

When I reached one, I attacked the monster, and Écri wrote the word 'Net' and a net appeared right above the monster capturing it. The net wasn't strong enough and the monster broke through. It began attacking us making us lose health. I quickly summoned Aquarius. She appeared and attacked the monster with so much power that it killed it in one shot.

"I was on vacation with my boyfriend, you couldn't of chosen another time to summon me?" She complained.

"Um, sorry?" I said.

"Whatever." She then disappeared.

"Rude." Ècri commented. I nodded my head.

We picked up the monsters tooth. And saw that our health was pretty low.

"I heard that we can sleep at a hotel and regain all of our health." She said.

"Okay, then let's go back into town." We began walking back to town and looked for the hotel where we got the quest. Once we arrived, we turned our quest in, and got some money from it. We asked for separate rooms and they gave us the keys. I went to my room and Écri stayed in the room next to mine. I sat on the bed for a while looking through my menu. When I exited it, I was about to get ready to sleep when I heard a knock on the window I looked to see what or who it was and I saw the guy that ran into me earlier. I opened the window and he jumped into the room.

"Um, can I help you." I asked.

"Yes. Oh and I'm sorry I ran into you earlier, I was kinda being chased." He explained rubbing the back of his neck.

"How can I help you? And yeah it kinda wasn't hard to figure out that you were being chased." I explained. " But why?" I asked.

"Just let me spend the night here. And I was being chased because technically I stole something but the thing is, it belonged to me in the first place. Oh and by the way, I'm Salamander."

"Fine I'll let you spend the night here if you give me half of what I needed to pay for the room. What'd you 'steal'?" I asked. "Oh and I'm Celestia." I added

"Deal." He said extending his arm to shake it so we could make the deal official. "And it was a reward I was supposed to get for completing a quest I accepted but they didn't want to give me the reward so I took it and just ran." He explained. I nodded. "What kind of magic do you use?" He asked.

"I can summon celestial spirits. Like this." I said summoning the dog celestial spirit. It didn't really look like a dog but it was so cute. "What kind of magic do you have?"

"Um what is that?" He asked raising an eyebrow. "Oh, and I use fire magic." He said and a flame showed up around his hand. I widened my eyes.

"PUT THAT OUT! I DON'T WANT THE FIRE ALARM TO GO OUT!" I yelled at him.

"Woah, okay, chill." He said putting putting it out.

"Okay, so you can stay on the floor. I'm gonna stay on the bed." I said as I was about to get in the bed.

"What? But it's a king size bed, you're not even gonna take up half of the bed. I could have the other half. We can put a pillow in the middle if it makes you feel better." He suggested. I thought about it for a while.

"Okay, fine. Just stay on your side." I said. He nodded in agreement. As I was about to sleep, Écri messaged me.

Écrivain: I'm gonna log off for the night.

Me: Okay, me too.

My avatar fell asleep and I logged off. It was already 10:00 p.m. when I took off my headset. I put it on my nightstand and went to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

I looked out the window and saw that it was snowing, so that meant I had to either go on a run in the snow or go to an actual gym. _I'd rather run in the snow, I just have to dress warm_ , I thought to myself. I looked for some warm workout clothes and ended up picking out a gray cropped hoodie with a black thermal long sleeved shirt underneath and paired it with a pair of black warm leggings and black Nike's. I played with my hair for a bit trying to figure out what to do with it. I decided just to have two braids on each side of my head and I wore a beanie as well.

When I walked downstairs I was shocked when I saw my dad in the living room.

"Lucy! Its great to see you." He said bringing me in for a hug. I was surprised because he hasn't hugged me since my moms funeral.

"It's good to see you too father." I hugged him back. "I thought you weren't supposed to be back till Christmas."

"Well I had a day off and decided to spend it with you. Oh, by the way, I've made a reservation for dinner tonight so we can catch up." he explained. I nodded.

"Oh, okay. Um, I'm going for a run I'll be back." I said walking towards the door.

"While it's snowing? For gods sake Lucy you'll catch a cold." He looked genuinely worried.

"I'll be fine father, I've gone on a run in worse weather." I explained. He hesitantly said okay, but he told me I should take Plue as well.

I walked outside lost in thought. _He's acting weird_. I began my run with Plue's leash in my hand. When I reached the nearby park to take a bit of a rest, Plue suddenly pulled on the leash making me stumble and let go of it.

When I regained my balance, I ran after Plue and saw that he ran towards a guy with a cat in his arms. Once I caught up to them I picked up Plue and carried him. The guy looked very familiar but I couldn't see his face good due to the fact that he had a beanie on and his hood from his sweater as well. He also had on a scaly scarf.

"I'm so sorry." I apologized. "He really likes cats." I said talking about Plue.

"Don't worry." He said chuckling. "Cute dog."

"Okay. Thanks, cute cat." He gave me a cheesy smile and began walking away.

I put Plue down and began running back home to complete my four mille run. When I got home and went inside I took Plue's leash off and let him run around the house. I made myself a protein shake and went upstairs to take a shower. After I finished taking a shower I got dressed in some shorts and a big T-shirt. I left my hair down to dry.

I decided to log onto Infinite Oasis to tell Écri that I won't be on today and to make sure Salamander leaves the hotel room.

When I logged on I was laying on the hotel bed and Salamander was still asleep. I checked my menu to see if Écri was online and saw that she was downstairs in the hotel lobby so I went down to look for her. While I was in the elevator, a piece of paper caught my eye and once I got a good look at it I saw that it was a wanted poster with Salamander's face on it. I tore it off the wall and put it in my inventory.

"Hey Écri." I greeted as I walked towards her.

"Hey, what's up?" She said looking up from the book she was reading.

"Nothing much, I actually needed to tell you that I'm not gonna be on much today, I'm spending time with my father." I explained.

"Oh, that's fine I actually wasn't going to be on much either because I need to do the homework that's due tomorrow." She replied. "I'm gonna log off now, I'll see you tomorrow Celestia."

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye." I waved as she started to turn into pixels.

I went back up to the hotel room and sat on the bed until Salamander logged on.

After what felt like forever I felt movement and turned to see him standing up.

"Well its about time you logged on." I said as I stood up and looked at him. He didn't say anything he was just looking, no, he was studying my face. I raised my eyebrow in confusion and he finally spoke up.

"Well why were you waiting for me to log on anyways?" He questioned.

"Because, I need to check out of the hotel and I don't want the employees finding someone that's on a wanted poster in my hotel room." I answered holding up the poster. "The thing you must have taken was probably really valuable. What exacts was it anyways?"

"Woah, I'm on a wanted poster? That's so cool!" He said. I faced palmed.

"How is that so cool?!"

"Because I've always wanted to be on a wanted poster. Duh, why else would it be cool? Weirdo."

I glared at him but realized he didn't answer my other question. "You never answered my question. What exactly did you 'steal'?." I said putting quotation marks up when I said 'steal'.

"Oh I don't know really its in this chest." He said dragging a chest from his side of the bed.

"When did you get this chest in here?" I asked when I realized that he didn't have anything with him when he knocked on the window.

"Before you even came into the room." He opened the chest and what I saw surprised me.

"Woah that's a big egg." I said. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't know. Maybe a dragon!" He suggested.

"No I don't thin-" I started to say something but as I tried touching it, it began shaking and I jumped back almost screaming. I looked at Salamander with confusion.

After about a minute of it shaking, it cracked open but nothing popped up. We got closer to it and suddenly something flew out making me literary jump into Salamander's arms.

"Wha-What is that!?" I asked.

"A cat?" Salamander said. He suddenly dropped me and went to inspect it.

I thankfully landed on the bed. I glared at him but noticed he was right, it was a cat.

"But it's flying, how can it be a cat?" I was curious.

"Well its a flying cat duh." He said casually.

"Last time I checked flying cats don't exist, let alone blue flying cats." In said as I realized its odd color.

"They do here."

"Aye, sir." The cat suddenly spoke. My eyes widened in surprise.

"It can talk too! Awesome!" Salamander looked at the cat with awe.

 _What a weirdo_ I thought to myself. I opened my menu and looked at the time, I was shocked when I saw that it's been almost two hours.

"Listen, can you please take your blue, flying, talking cat and get out of the hotel room so I can check out and log out?" I asked as politely as possible.

"Okay, but on one condition. Help me name the cat." He offered a deal.

"Really? Fine." I agreed and he smiled. "Do you have any pets in the real world?"

"Yup I have a cat."

"Well what's its name?"

"Happy."

"Happy?" I asked in confusion.

"Yup." He confirmed.

"Then why don't you name him Happy?" I suggested.

"Good idea. Well Happy, are you ready to go?" Natsu asked the cat.

"Aye sir. Let's go get some fish!" The cat flew out the window and soon Salamander followed by jumping out the window. _He really is a weirdo._

I stood up from my bed and went downstairs. I ate some lunch and went back upstairs to complete some homework I was assigned.

"Lucy? Our reservation is in an hour." My dad stated from my door.

"Okay, I'll begin getting ready." I heard him walk downstairs and I stood up and went to my closet. Knowing my dad he probably made reservations at a fancy restaurant so I decided to wear a light blue dress with leggings underneath and boots. I grabbed a coat and headed downstairs. We got in my dads car and drove to the restaurant.

"Reservation for Heartfilia." My dad told the waitress that was greeting and seating guest.

"Right this way." She said as she grabbed two menus and lead us to a table. We ordered our drinks and looked through the menu. I decided to order a Caesar Salad and my dad ordered a steak.

We ate in silence until I asked my dad the question that's been in my head the whole day.

"Father? What's the real reason you came today?" I asked hoping he'd give me an honest answer.

"Well because I had a day off of course."

"Father, I know that's not the real reason. Please be honest with me." I pleaded for an answer.

"Well I came today because I won't be able to make it home for Christmas." He revealed.

The answer shocked me. He would always make it home for Christmas no matter what.

"Why?" I asked with tears brimming in my eyes.

"I can't say." He looked down.

I stood up and that caught his attention. Tears threatened to fall and I didn't want anyone to see me cry so I left. I walked right out of the restaurant and kept walking until I bumped into someone making me fall in the snow. _Great._

"I'm so sorr- hey, your the girl from the park." I looked up to see who it was and it sure was the guy from the park, he was still wearing the same clothes. "Why are you crying?" He asked.

"No reason." I looked down, wiped my tears and tried to sound cheery.

"Someone wouldn't be crying for 'no reason'."

"Look, I just want to get home, so please excuse me." My voice cracked due to the fact that I was still partially crying. I stood up and began walking away but I heard him run towards me. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Walking you home. I'm not gonna let a crying girl walk home alone." He responded nonchalantly.

I walked home with him walking by my side. It was silent, no one talked. When we arrived to my house I walked to the door and reached for the doorknob.

"Thank you." I said before I entered my house.

"No problem." He walked away and I ran up to my room. I cried and cried until I finally fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up not knowing when my dad got home or when he left. I walked downstairs to see a note on the kitchen counter.

 _Dear Lucy,_

 _I know how upset you are. Just know that I will tell you the reason when I'm ready. Please forgive me._

 _Jude Heartfilia_

I threw the note to the side not knowing what to think. No matter what I loved my dad but him missing Christmas just made me realize that without him I only have myself.

Chapter 3 is finally up. I'm sorry I took so long to update.

Don't forget to leave a review :)


	4. Chapter 4

While I was brushing my hair, the school called my house phone to inform me that school was canceled due to roads being closed because of the snow. I was relieved when I found out, I was not in the mood to go to school today. I changed out of my school uniform and got dressed in warm, comfortable clothes consisting of a pair of black sweats and an oversized white T-shirt. I ate some breakfast, fed Plue and went upstairs to my room.

I heard a notification from my laptop and saw it was an email.

 _Hey Celestia, its Écrivain, I have no school today are you up to play Infinite Oasis?_

I was confused because I never gave her my email.

 _Hey Écri, yeah I'm up to play. One Question, how'd you get my email?_ I emailed her back.

 _Oh, there was an update that lets us send messages to the email connected to the game._

When I read that email, I started up my console and put my VR headset on as I laid down on my bed.

I spawned in the lobby of the hotel where I was last time. I opened my map to find _Écri_ and saw she was at a bookstore. As I was walking to the bookstore I bumped into a girl with scarlet red hair that was staring at a piece of strawberry shortcake in a bakery window.

"Oh I'm so sorry." I apologized.

"Don't worry, it's quite alright. Say, should I get this strawberry shortcake?" She asked my opinion.

"Uh, I don't know, do you really want it?" I asked. She nodded. "Then yes you should."

"Then I shall get it and get you one too." She smiled and was about to enter the bakery when a fight broke out near by. "Not this again." She said running to the fight. "Stop now!" She yelled at them. When they heard her, they instantly stopped fighting. I noticed one of them was Salamander and he had Happy flying behind him. I didn't recognize the other guy. He had dark blue hair and was nearly naked, only in his boxers. "Gray, your clothes." The girl said.

"What? How did that even happen?!" The guy, who I assume is Gray, said looking for his clothes. "This is all your fault Flamebrain"

"It's not my fault you're a stripper Ice Freak!" Salamander said. I sensed another fight was about to start but one stern look for the girl in the armor stopped them and they acted as though they were best friends.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I was about to buy a piece of cake for my new friend and myself." She said pointing at me.

"Oh hey its… what was her name Happy?" he asked the cat.

"Celest?" Happy replied.

"Oh that's right. Hey Celest." Salamander waved.

"It's CELESTIA not CELEST." I yelled at them.

"No it's Celest. Right Happy?"

"Aye Sir!" he responded.

"You two know eachother?" The girl asked.

"Yup." Salamander answered.

The girl began walking towards me. "Well Celest, I'm Titania." She put her hand out for me to shake.

"It's Celestia, please don't listen to the cat." I said shaking her hand. She nodded and went inside the bakery. When she returned she gave me a slice of the strawberry shortcake. "Thank you. This is delicious." She nodded.

I got a message from Écri and remembered I was going to the bookstore. "I have to go meet up with a friend, it was nice meeting you Titania."

"It was a pleasure meeting you too Celestia." She said eating her cake.

When I got to the bookstore I saw Écriarguing with a guy that was much bigger than her and had steel studs on his face.

"Écri!" I greeted her as I approached her.

"Écri? Who's Écri?" The guy questioned.

"Me! I'm Écrinot 'Shrimp'!" She yelled at him.

"Pft, whatever. See ya later shrimp." He said leaving. _Écri_ stomped in annoyance.

"Who was that?" I asked. As she was about to answer we were teleported to the exact same place we spawned when we first began the game. "What happened?"

"I don't know. It looks like everyone was teleported to the town hall we all began the game in." Écristated.

After a while, the same projector screen where the game developer greeted us, turned on and he was on the screen. He had looked stressed.

"H-Hello everyone. We were just informed that there was a glitch in the game. This glitch is not something to be taken lightly." He said. I began getting worried. "The glitch has caused everyone to be stuck in the game, you can't log out." Everyone gasped. I opened my menu and tried logging out but nothing happened. "We promise we will find a way to fix this. Please don't panic. I will be answering any questions you have."

"How are we supposed to eat?" "What about our families and pets?" those were the main question asked.

"As long as you eat in the game, you should be fine." I didn't understand how but I was still too shocked to care. "And as for your pets and families, you can send emails through the game and inform them about the situation. "Now if you'll excuse me, my team and I have to get working on finding how to fix this." The screen then went black.

"This has got to be one sick joke. Right?" Écri said not believing what just happened. I too wanted to believe this was a joke.

"What are we gonna do?" I asked.

"I don't know."

We all stood in shock not wanting to believe this was real. After a few minutes it clicked and we realized there was no way to change this.

"Well if we're gonna be here for a while, we should know each others real names. I'm Lucy." I said trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, I guess so. I'm Levy." she said.

"We should go get other people's real name." I said as I spotted Titania. Levy nodded.

"Hey Titania." I greeted.

"Hello Celestia. May I ask your real name now that we're gonna be stuck in this game. I'm Erza." she properly introduced herself.

"I'm Levy."

"I'm Lucy."

"Luigi what a weird name." I heard a familiar voice speak.

"It's Lucy, L-U-C-Y, not Luigi." I corrected him.

"I heard Luigi too." Happy said. I glared at the cat.

"Well Salamander, what's your real name?" Erza asked.

"Natsu." he said.

"What about you Gray?" she asked as the guy Natsu was fighting with earlier approached.

"My real name _is_ Gray." he said. "I couldn't come up with anything else."

"Oh well it's nice to meet all of you." I said. I appeared happy on the outside but on the inside I was freaking out about being stuck in this game.

* * *

New chapter

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	5. Chapter 5

"So now that we've had a proper introduction, I say we try to figure out a way out of this game. Now who's with me?" Erza spoke as we sat down at a nearby table. We all rose our hands. "Alright does anyone have any ideas?"

"Uh, I might have an idea." Levy said shyly. We all stayed silent waiting for her to continue. "While I was at the bookstore earlier, I saw a book about the game and I believe it said that once we beat the final boss, we will be returned to the main screen. Maybe all we have to do is beat the game so we can get out of the game."

"You may be on to something Levy. Do you think you and Lucy can go to the bookstore and find more information about it?" Erza asked. Levy and I nodded. "Alright, if we do need to defeat the final boss, then we'll need better gear and more support, so I will go to the armory and buy some gear, and Natsu and Gray, go and find people that may be able to help us." We all nodded and agreed to her plan. "Alright then, lets meet up at the water fountain when we're all finished."

Levy and I began running toward the bookstore but I stopped when I saw a girl crying in the corner. "Hey Levy, go on ahead, I'll catch up a bit later." She turned around and nodded. I walked over to the girl.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked kneeling down. She looked up at me, she had tears streaming down her face. "What's your name?"

"Wen..dy." she said between sobs. "I'm never….. going to see…. my family again." She said crying even more.

"Hey, don't say that, we'll get out of this. My friends and I may have found a way to get out, do you think you'd be willing to help?" I asked trying to calm her. She looked back up with hope in her eyes and wiped her tears away nodding.

"I'll help, I'll do anything to go back to the real world." She said standing up with determination on her face. I stood up as well.

"Now that's what I'm talking about. Let's go meet up with Levy, she's trying to find more information about the game.

~Meanwhile~

Levy's POV

When I got to the bookstore, I immediately began searching for the book I saw earlier. Since the bookstore I found it at earlier was two towns away, I had to look over the entire store since I didn't know where it was. I ended up finding it on top of the shelf. I couldn't reach it so I had to go on my toes to even come close to being able to reach it, when a hand grabbed it before I could.

"Hey! I was about to grab that!" I yelled.

"Please, you wouldn't be able to reach it even in your dreams Shrimp." he teased as he held the book up even higher. I recognized him as the guy I ran into earlier.

"For the last time, MY NAME ISN'T SHRIMP!" I stomped my foot. "It's Levy."

"Levy? But I thought that bunny girl called Écri. So what's the truth?" He asked.

"Bunny girl? Do you mean Lucy? The girl with the blonde hair?" I asked.

"Yeah, she reminds me of a bunny girl. Anyways, what is your real name?" he asked.

"It's Levy, Écrivain was my username in here before we got trapped. Speaking of which, can I have that book it has information I need to try and find a way out of here." I said. He eyed the book and eventually handed it to me.

"That book is going to help you find a way out of here?" he asked as he followed me to a nearby table in the bookstore.

"I hope." I said as I began reading it. "What's yours?" I asked

"Huh?"

"Your name. What's your real name."

"Gajeel." He stated. I continued reading when the door to the bookstore opened. I saw Lucy walk in with another blue haired girl behind her.

"Levy! Did you find anything?" she asked as she reached the table we were sitting at. "Oh by the way, this is Wendy." She introduced the girl.

"Hi." Wendy said shyly.

"Hey it's nice to meet you I'm Levy." I waved at her, she smiled and I continued reading the book.

"Bunny girl." Gajeel greeted.

"Bunny Girl? Wait, are you talking about me!?" Lucy asked with surprise. Gajeel nodded, she looked insulted. I gasped when I read something that could be helpful. "What'd you find?"

"It says here that we need to collect all of the pieces of a mirror and this has the location of where we can find the first piece." I said pointing to the last paragraph of the book. Next to the paragraph there was a picture of a monster we would need to beat.

"Uh, don't tell me we need to defeat that thing. It looks so creepy." Lucy looked horrified as she saw the picture of the monster.

"Please I can defeat that monster in one hit." Gajeel said as his arm turned into iron.

"Woah" I said. "What kind of magic do you use?" I asked.

"Iron Dragon Slayer magic." he stated.

"Did you say Dragon Slayer magic?" Wendy asked. Gajeel nodded. "I use Sky Dragon Slayer magic. I heard there's six other Dragon Slayers in the game." Wendy stated.

"Woah that's so cool." Lucy said amazed. "Anyways, we should go tell the others. Let's go to the water fountain." Lucy suggested. We all nodded and headed out.

Lucy's POV

We all began walking to the water fountain Erza told us to meet up at. As we got closer we saw Natsu and Gray arguing with two silver haired girls trying to stop them and a blue haired girl gawking at Gray. We also saw what looked like Happy flirting with a white cat. He was offering her a fish.

"Listen tomcat, I do not want your fish!" The white cat yelled, even then Happy kept insisting to give her the fish.

"Natsu, Gray you better not be fighting." Erza's voice came out of nowhere. Their faces immediately paled in fear and they began pretending they were the best of friends.

"Fighting? What never." Gray said as he hugged Natsu. The blue haired girl glared daggers at Natsu.

"I see you brought other people with you. Mind introducing yourselves?" Erza asked as she noticed New faces.

"I'm Mirajane and this is my little sister Lisanna." The girl with the longer silver hair said with the latter waving.

"My name is Juvia and my beloved Gray is mine only." The other blue haired girl said as she hugged Gray's arm.

"Hey get off!" Gray protested which only led to Juvia holding on even more.

"And this beauty is Carla." Happy said looking at the white cat with hearts in his eye's, Carla just looked away from him.

"Oh my gosh you're so cute!" Wendy said as she went over and picked up Carla. "I'm Wendy. Do you want to be my cat?" She said as she hugged her to her chest.

"Well I suppose there is no better choice." Carla stated.

"Hey your that jerk that pushed me into a mine cart while you were running away from the authorities!" Gajeel spoke as he saw Natsu.

"It's not my fault you were in my way metal freak!" Natsu yelled back. I could tell they were about to fight but as always. Erza stepped in and stopped them.

"So Levy, did you find anything?" Erza asked.

"Yes. I found out that we need to find all of the pieces of a mirror to summon the final boss." Levy answered as she pulled out the book and skipped to the last page. "We have to find that monster in the location specified so we can get the first piece. I believe that there is a book in every town with the next steps because this says it only volume one so there must be more." She explained.

"Alright that sounds easy enough. Now this is the gear I found. I believe this will help conquer any male beast out there." Erza said holding up a swimsuit.

"Uh Erza, I don't think that will help us defeat any monsters." I said.

"What you don't like what I picked out." she said giving me a glare that made me shake in fear.

"What, no I love it." I took the swimsuit from her and she smiled. "I just think we need stronger gear."

"Fine, I suppose we can each look for gear that suits each of us. Just be back here in an hour so we can discuss our plan of action." she said sternly.

We all nodded and headed to nearby shops. I enjoyed the way we all instantly became friends, even with Natsu, Gray, and Gajeel's arguing. I almost forgot we were in a virtual world.


	6. Chapter 6

Hey I'm back. I'm so so so so so sorry for the really long wait but here's chapter 6. Hope you enjoy it. :)

* * *

I arrived at a shop that sold just about everything you could possibly need for your character. I looked around for a bit until I found some good gear that fit my character and my class. I was about to buy it when I saw two boxes in a glass case near the door. One had a gold key and the other had a silver one.

"Excuse me, what gate do those keys open?" I asked the cashier.

"I believe the gold one opens the gate of the twins, Gemini, and the silver one opens the gate of the clock, Horologium." he explained.

I ended up buying both of the keys and my gear, I only barely had enough for all of it. After I bought everything, I went into my menu and equipped everything but realized that everything had random colors so I kept the cloak from the beginning of the game on until I was able to buy a shader to change the color of my armor.

I walked back to the fountain and saw Natsu and Happy were the only ones there. He was sitting on a bench next to the fountain and he looked lost in thought.

"Hey." I said as I sat down next to him. He didn't acknowledge my presence.

"That's not going to work, I've been trying to get his attention for a while." Happy spoke.

"Hello, earth to Natsu." I waved my hand in front of his face. He blinked a couple of times and finally spoke.

"What?" he asked.

"Whats wrong?" I asked raising an eyebrow. "You seem out of it."

"Nothing."

"Come on I might not actually know you in real life but, I know you're lying." I stated. He looked at me for a bit until he gave in.

"I was thinking, what's gonna happen to my cat in the real world since I'm not gonna be able to feed it and stuff." he confessed as he looked down at his hands. My eyes widened when I remembered about Plue. _What's gonna happen to Plue!_

"Shit, I never thought of that. I have a pet too." I replied looking down.

We stayed silent for a while until I had an idea. I opened my menu and went to my email. I found the contact of my father's assistant and emailed her.

 _Hey, it's Lucy. I don't know if you've heard_ _about this in the news or anything but recently there was this game that glitched out and all the people that were playing it got stuck in it. Well I was one of the players that got trapped. It's crazy I know, but it happened. Anyways, I have a friend in here that has a pet in real life and I do as well. I was wondering, can some of my father's other assistants in Mangolia check up on our pets once in a while? Please email me back as soon as you can. Also, please tell my father that I'm sorry about the other night and that I love him._

I exited my menu and found Erza slapping me. I quickly grabbed her hand to stop her. "Woah Erza chill, what the hell!?"

"I'm sorry, you weren't responding so I did what I thought would make you respond. It's seemed to have worked." She retracted her hand looking proud.

"I was just emailing someone, that's not a reason to be slapping someone." I said as I grabbed my cheek.

"Well you should have told Natsu at least. We all thought your character froze or something." Levy responded.

"Oh your right , I'm sorry." I apologized.

"Its fine I suppose." Erza said as she sat down next to me.

"So who are we waiting for?" I asked when I looked around and only saw a few people.

"Gajeel, Mirajane, Lissana, Gray, and Juvia." Wendy answered. I nodded.

As we waited for the others, we learned a bit more about each other. I learned that most of us lived in or near Magnolia. When Mira and Lissana got back, we learned that they have a brother named Elfman. I also learned, through Gajeel's complaints about wanting a talking cat, that him, Natsu and Wendy had cats in real life. We continued getting to know each other better and when Gray and Juvia got back back, we started heading to the location marked in the book.

"Should we level up a bit more before we jump into the fight?" Lissana suggested before we left the town.

"We're all above level 10 right?" Erza asked. We all nodded. "Then we should be fine, the enemies in this area should only be level one to five. I'm assuming the monster we need to beat is only level five."

"Makes sense." Gajeel commented.

"We will have the five people that have the highest level go up against it to compare it's power to ours." Erza said. She opened her menu and looked through all our levels. "Lets see, the five highest level characters are Natsu, Gray, Gajeel, Lucy and I."

"What me?" I was surprised that I had a higher level than others.

"Yes. You're only half a level higher than Mira." Erza explained.

"Oh."

We then continued to the area fighting some monsters along the way. Halfway there, I got an email back from my dad's assistant and I went and tapped Natsu on his shoulder.

"Hey Natsu, can I talk to you real quick?" I asked as I slowed down so we were behind the group.

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"Where do you live?" I inquired.

"In Magnolia, I told you this earlier. Did you already forget Luigi?" He said poking my forehead.

"Yes I know that, I meant your actually address, I contacted one of my dad's assistants and she said that she can send a few people to check up on our pets. I was gonna ask Gajeel as well since he also lives alone and doesn't have someone to care for his cat." I explained as I swatted away his finger. "And it's Lucy not Luigi."

"Wait really, that's great." He proceeded to give me his address and I also asked Gajeel for his address and he called me weird for. Eventually he did give me his address and I was able to email the assistant back right before we approached the destination.

"Alright everyone, keep your guard up. We don't know where the monster is." Erza told us. We all nodded and looked around. I felt the ground begin to shake beneath me. I looked down and saw spikes coming up. I screamed and jumped out of the way.

"Uh, I think I found the monster." I said. Everyone looked at me and I pointed to where I was previously standing.

A big round monster rose up from the ground. It had spikes all over. We all just stared at it until one of its spikes went towards Levy. Her eyes widened before she shut them waiting for the impact, when she realized nothing happened she opened her eyes and saw that Gajeel had blocked it by turning his arm into an iron club.

"Are you all ready?" Erza asked.

"Yeah!" Natsu and Gray answered in unison. I nodded my head and Gajeel just glared at the monster.

"Let's go!" Erza said begin to charge at the monster.

* * *

Thanks for reading, please don't forget to leave a review. :)


	7. Chapter 7

Hello, I am so so so sorry for the wait. I was just not in a good place mentally and needed a break. But without further ado, here's the new chapter. Hope you all enjoy.

* * *

As we began getting ready to fight the monster, Natsu completely ignored our entire plan and tried to fight it by himself. He threw a fireball at it only for it to bounce right back.

"What the heck?" He asked confused. Be shot another fireball but ended up with the same result. Gray and Gajeel attempted to fight it but each and every shot was reflected right back at them.

The monster stayed still trough all of it. We were all quiet due to our confusion, that's when the monster decided to strike.

One of its spikes began extending and was headed right towards me. I stood in shock not being able to move a muscle.

"Lucy!" I heard everyone yell. I just couldn't move at all, it was like I was paralyzed. I closed my eyes waiting for the impact but nothing ever came. I opened my eyes and saw Natsu standing in front of me holding the monsters spike arm.

"Natsu?" I spoke up shocked. He looked back at me and just flashed that big grin of his. "Thank you."

I looked away from him and looked at the monster, where the spike once was on its body, there was what looked like lava.

"There," I pointed, "that must be it's weak point!" I yelled at everyone. Gray shot out an icicle and it damaged the monster so it's health went down.

"You're right. Nice job Luce!" Natsu said as he used all his strength to tear off the monsters limb. "Now then, let's take this thing down!" He said enthusiastically. Everyone nodded but in the blink of an eye, the monster was already defeated, all it took was one punch from Natsu. We all stood there shocked.

"Woah." Was all I could say. I opened my menu and inspected Natsu. He was already level 20 and had such powerful gear. I looked over his character and blushed when suddenly all his clothes disappeared and he appeared naked with only a blur over his private part. I exited the menu as quick as I could and saw Natsu laughing, and everyone glaring at him.

"Like what you all saw?" He literally began rolling on the ground laughing. "I bet Lucy did, just look at the blush on her face." He pointed at me and everyone looked at me which made my blush get worse. I was so embarrassed that I fast traveled to the nearest hotel.

I quickly emailed Levy that I would wait here until they get here. I sat down in the lobby and looked around, there were so many people around. I decided to walk around and make some new friends. I didn't make it far when an orange haired guy with glasses appeared in front of me.

"Well hello there beautiful, I'm Loki." He took my hand and kissed it while introducing himself. "What might your name be?"

"Uh, Lucy." I said hesitantly. I was very uncomfortable and wanted my friends to get here already.

"What a beautiful name for such a beautiful girl." He said winking. I faked a smile and thanked him before I heard a loud voice yell my name.

"Lucy!" I never thought I'd be so happy to hear that voice. Natsu ran at me and dropped to his knees. "Forgive me please!"

"My beloved Lucy, what did this deadbeat do to hurt you?" Loki asked hugging me as if protecting me from Natsu.

"Nothing, my _boyfriend_ did nothing wrong. Isn't that right Natsu?" I quickly sent him a message to play along and he did.

"Right, all I did was leave her waiting a few minutes. Now if you would let go of my girl, you won't get hurt." He said standing up and glaring towards Loki.

"Woah man, I didn't know she was taken. Sorry about that." He let go of me and I ran to Natsu hugging him.

"Thank you so much." I whispered in his ear. I heard him mumble a response before I heard Loki start yelling. I looked at him and his pant leg was on fire. I laughed but playfully smacked Natsu. "You didn't have to go that far."

"But he was bothering you. Now we know he won't come back again." He smiled and got on his knees again and began asking for my forgiveness. "Erza said she would never let me fight again unless you forgave me." He explained.

"Hmmm." I pretended to be thinking about it. "And why should I forgive you?"

"Im a nice guy? I don't know just please forgive me"

"Hmm. Ok. I guess. You did save me twice today I guess it's the least i could do." I smirked.

He smiled and stood up hugging me. He kissed my cheeks too causing me to blush again. "Thank you Thank you"

He let go and I smiled forcing the blush away. He took me to the rest of the group and we discussed our next plan of action. Levy would go to the bookstore in this town and find volume two of the book. The rest of us were to train and learn new attacks with a partner. Since Levy was going to be busy, I tried getting Wendy as my partner but Erza gave me a different task.

"Lucy, I'm giving you the most important task of them all," she explained while pulling me to the side. "Remember that strawberry shortcake?" She drooled just speaking about it. "Please, find the bakery and bring me a piece back, you can get yourself one too if you'd like."

"Oh, such an important task, how will I ever do it alone?" I said sarcastically.

"You are correct, hmm," she put a finger on her chin and looked around. "Natsu, join Lucy on this important task I gave her."

"What, why me~?" He complained.

"It involves food." That was all Natsu had to hear to agree to join. "Excellent, I expect you two back in no more than an hour." We both nodded our heads knowing exactly that she would punish us both if we were even a second late.

As we were looking for the bakery, I decided to get to know more about Natsu.

"So, how old are you?" I asked a simple question to start off.

"Eighteen. What about you?" He answered after a moment of hesitation.

"Seventeen." I answered.

"Yikes, you must still be in high school then. The worst years of my life. It's a miracle I graduated." He explained.

"I actually don't mind school." I said, resulting in Natsu giving me a weird look. "It gives me something to do rather than be home alone all day." I shrugged.

"Alone? Shouldn't you be living with your parents still?" He questioned.

"Um, my mother passed away when I was young and my father is away on business most of the time." I said looking down, my voice cracked and tears threatened to fall as I remembered what my father told me the other night.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, please don't cry." He said wiping away the single tear that fell. "My father disappeared when I was young and I never met my mother. I was in an orphanage for most of my life until a nice old woman took me in, she passed away just last year." He explained.

"You have it worse than I do, how are you always so happy all the time?" I asked curiously.

"I focus on the good things rather than the bad." He flashed that big grin of his. "For example, being stuck in here may be bad, but I've made more friends in here than I have in the real world. It's not too bad in here."

"You're right." I had never thought of it that way. I smiled and thanked him for making me a bit happier. When he was serious, he was a real gentleman. "Say, did you ever have a girlfriend?"

"Nope. I didn't have friends, let alone a girlfriend." I was shocked.

"That's surprising, what about a crush? Have you ever liked a girl?" I don't know why I was so interested in this topic.

"Eh, I met a girl not too long ago, but I wouldn't call it a crush. It's more like she interested me, I wanted to get to know her better. Hell, I don't even know her name." He seemed to be trying to remember her. "What about you?"

"I've had a crush on a few guys, but never had a real relationship. Every time I was asked, I'd be too nervous or scared to say yes."

"You must've been popular if you were asked out a lot." He thought.

"I wouldn't say I was popular but I guess to others I was. I don't know how though, I was a nerdy and anti-social girl." I said reminiscing about freshman year.

"Nerdy? Cute." He chuckled. I felt my cheeks start to beat up and I knew I was blushing. I looked away to avoid more embarrassment.

"Oh look, it's the bakery." I pointed and nearly ran towards the familiar building.

When I entered, I looked around but saw no strawberry shortcakes. I started to panic and my heart dropped. Erza was so scary, I didn't want to let her down and feel her wrath. I tried finding an employee or someone to help but only saw Natsu drooling at the donuts.

"Um Natsu, I can't see the strawberry shortcake. We're dead if we return empty handed." I said still panicking.

"Just cause it's not on display doesn't mean they don't have it." He said as if it was obvious. "You order here dummy." He said walking over to a monitor.

I selected what I wanted, paid and the two items appeared in my inventory. Natsu pushed me over wanting to get something himself.

"Do you like coffe? I prefer hot cocoa." He said looking through the menu.

"Um I like iced coffee." I said.

"Wow. Basic. What kind of iced coffee?"

"French vanilla. I know I know, even more basic." I laughed. He joined in too. After a few minutes looking through the rest of the menu, a chocolate donut and iced coffee appeared in his hands.

"Here, we've got about half an hour still until we need to meet with Erza, let's take a seat outside and we can talk some more." He offered. I smiled and accepted the donut and iced coffee.

When we sat outside, I saw him eat 3 donuts at once. I looked at him with my eyes wide open in surprise.

"I take it you have a big appetite." I giggled. He simply nodded his head while consuming more sweets.

"In high school I'd eat in every class. I'd even get detention for it. But even though I ate a lot, I played sports so I never really gained weight or became unhealthy." He stated. "Did you play any sports?"

"I played volleyball, I loved it. I played it since I was a child, my mom would always encourage me to be the best and it really helped me a lot." I explained. I smiled at the thought of my mother. "One of my friends also convinced me to do track and cross country. I never thought something as simple as running could help me clear my mind at times. I always make time to take a run no matter the weather." I added.

"So even in rain and snow?" He asked.

"Yup. The other morning I went on run in the snow and honestly, It felt really good." I smiled even more. "I love snow and so does my dog. But then again, he loves everything." I giggled.

"I rarely go out in the snow. When I do it's only if something is on my mind." He explained.

We continued talking a bit more until we realized we only had ten minutes until the deadline Erza gave us. We fast traveled to the hotel and saw we were the only ones there. No one, not even the lobby NPC's were there.

"Where is everyone?" I asked. Natsu shrugged his shoulders and kept looking around. "I tried sending Levy an email but it keeps saying _error server disconnected_ " I explained to Natsu.

I saw his lips moving but no words came out. Everything began getting pixelated and eventually everything turned black.

"Natsu?" I kept repeating his name hoping to get a response but nothing came.

Natsu's POV

Lucy began to disappear. Pixel by pixel until she was completely gone. I reached out for her hand but I was too late. After she disappeared, everyone else reappeared. All of the NPC's and the players were walking around as usual. I was very confused and worried.

"Natsu!" I heard Erza yell. "Where's Lucy?" I didn't answer. "Natsu?"

"Lucy disappeared."


End file.
